No Married Persons

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I think it is very interesting that the negative examples of lust certainly are full of issues of power, as Sarumian suggests. It is of course modern legal and psychological definitions of sexual assault that remove rape from sexual desire and describe it not as desire but as power.

I think that is mostly valid in the context of Tolkien, though I would question it in the case of Morgoth. It seems there that the "power" motive might not have been primary, as he already held (as he thought) tremendous power in Middle-earth. In any case, Lúthien would have been, to his mind, completely in his power, being deep inside his stronghold, with countless minions standing between her and escape. In that instance, it appears that a sexual lust was possibly independent of a desire to assert power.